Lydia: I have the kit (for the Rosy Fingered Dawn). Part of the booty (heh...Talk like a Pirate Day leftover) from my trip to Blackberry Ridge in summer of '04. They had two of the kits left then and weren't sure if they would be packaging up more. So the shawl will look like the picture. (Fortunately, they include a color code to let you know what color goes where; some of the greys and blues are very close to each other.)

I really like knitting with the Blackberry Ridge laceweight; it's a more "natural" wool (not 100% even-spun, it feels like wool, it has a "handmade" quality to it) than some laceweights. The yarn feels good in my hands and it makes a nice product.

I know some people are a bit irritated when they have to once in a while pick pieces of chaff out of their yarn (that's rarer with Blackberry Ridge than with some other "natural" yarns - Kureyon sprongs to mind as an example of a "chaffy" yarn) or that it's not exactly 100% identical in the spin all through the ball. But I like that - to me, it is like the Persian rug-weavers, or the Amish quilters, leaving a small imperfection in their work to recognize that only the Deity is perfect.

I also like yarn from smaller mills because I can almost sense the hand of the people who spun the yarn. Not so much with more "industrial" yarns. (And I met the owners of Blackberry Ridge; it feels good to have that connection. When I knit with the yarn, I know who made it or at least who owns the machinery that made it).

(I've tried handspinning myself; I would think it would be something I would enjoy. But I cannot get the hang of a drop spindle, at least not from watching the video that came with it. What I'd really love, would be the chance to go to a spinner's meeting and have someone show me how to use the drop spindle, and, even better, someone show me how and let me try out a wheel. Although I have a feeling that for me, trying a spinning wheel would be dangerous because then I'd immediately want one and all the impedimentia that goes along with spinning. Perhaps I'm better off being one of those people who helps keep small mills and handspinners in business by buying my yarn from them.)